James Poulos
, ContributorPolitical theory and strategy that works for American humansOpinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Words won't do justice.

Today in internet firestorms, Memorial Day edition:

I feel… uncomfortable, about the word because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism, you know, hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers, and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that.

So said MSNBC's Chris Hayes (whose weekend morning show UP has been no stranger to controversial subjects). Is he in fact wrong about that? Criticism has been intense. The National Commander of the VFW called his comments "reprehensible and disgusting." Breitbart's Kurt Schlichter took Hayes to mean he "thinks our soldiers are suckers and fools at best, brutal sociopaths at worst. At a minimum, he feels that honoring those who died for this country might encourage people to see that actually defending our country is a good thing."

I think these reactions push the point too far. To be sure, the point would go very far indeed if Hayes had said American soldiers are not heroes. Instead, he focused on his discomfort with describing all our servicemen and women as heroes. That's a far milder view than those expressed in classics of Western literature like All Quiet on the Western Front and Catch-22. Unlike those books, it leaves open the question of whether our soldiers -- or any soldiers -- deserve to be honored as heroes, regardless of how uncomfortable it might make any of us. Is there really any disagreement or confusion over whether politicians play politics with war? Is there anyone on any point on the political spectrum who has not felt uncomfortable with the way a president or a member of Congress has used military sacrifice and military service to toot their own horn or tout their own agenda? (Republicans, for instance, rightly didn't skip a beat condemning Obama for his bizarrely militaristic State of the Union appeal to 'nation building at home.')

The fact is, politicians have been marshaling military heroism in problematic ways for thousands of years: sometimes to beat the drum for more war; perhaps more often, to beat the drum for more politics. In so doing, they've put an additional burden on their troops. But a solider likely understands better than a civilian how fighting for a country requires a solider to accept that kind of burden -- at least, in a free country with civilian control of the military. To be a soldier and a hero is not to have fun. A civilian who honors soldiers as heroes in the fullest awareness of the burden politics places on military service isn't having fun with heroism, either. Instead, he or she is partaking in a somber relationship of respect.

Of course, that's sometimes not what Memorial Day seems to be about. After all, it's the opening holiday for the Summer solstice. Still, Memorial Day is remarkably 'under-commercialized.' What messes with Memorial Day most, I think, has very little to do with jingoism or the dumb celebration of power. I think the issue is that we live in a culture that promotes the ideal that everyone is a hero. Here's a joke version of the truth:

Politicizing heroism can be troublesome enough. Trivializing heroism? Even worse. But perhaps worst of all is pretending to elevate everyone to the level of a hero. The definition of a hero -- remember that? -- is simple: "a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability;" or "an illustrious warrior;" or one "admired for his achievements and noble qualities;" or "one who shows great courage." A serviceman or woman might be the first to tell you they're no hero. That's what Jessica Lynch said. (Remember her?) Contained in that kind of remark is the insight that -- barring persons of divine descent -- the proper thing to do with a hero is respect and admire, not worship. It's a helpful reminder of how slippery our cultural standards for slinging around the word 'hero' have become -- and how strangely idolatrous we've become in reveling in the experience of creating pseudo-heroes for ostensibly all-inclusive celebration.

Those are problems that ought to make us all more uncomfortable about how we think and talk about heroism. But on Memorial Day, the fitting fact to reflect on is that our soldiers are so often so much more heroic than the rest of us.